Page 126 of Discordant Cultivation

“I love you, Kieran. I love you,” Vale moaned, “stop fighting what you want. Let me hear you.”

And Kieran did. His hands tangled in Vale’s hair, pulling him down for a messy, tear-salted kiss as the pleasure crested and something inside him broke open.

The edge rushed up to meet him with devastating certainty. His back arched, hands clawed at Vale’s shoulders, and his voice broke around sounds he’d never let himself make before. Ecstasy ripped through him, his orgasm crashing like a wave, cum spilling hot between their bodies with the intensity of a storm’s catharsis. Vale followed him over with a sound that was half-groan, half-sob, flooding him with heat—a warm torrent that sealed the surrender. The boundary that existed only in his mind now shattered beyond repair, the fragments dissolving into stardust.

Vale collapsed against him, breathing hard, and Kieran felt the weight of him like an anchor. Like home. Like the inevitable conclusion to a story that had been written the moment Vale had left him a business card wrapped in cash..

“I love you,” Vale panted against his throat like a vow “I love you so much. I’ll always love you.”

Kieran believed him.

39

Underground and going deeper, I'm the keeper of my secrets…

Kieran

Three days. It had been three days since everything changed, and Kieran still couldn’t make the song work.

He sat cross-legged on their bed, his guitar balanced across his lap, surrounded by crumpled pages covered in half-finished verses and chord progressions that went nowhere. The intimacy song sprawled across his notebook like a puzzle with missing pieces.

Before, he hadn’t known how to finish it because he’d been too terrified to face what the words meant. Now he couldn’t finish it because the person who’d started writing it didn’t exist anymore.

“This skin don’t feel mine,

No comfort in your gaze.

My body’s tense when you’re close;

I’ve built these walls around a sacred space…”

The words were right. Raw and honest in ways that made him sick just reading them. But every melody he tried felt wrong, every rhythm pattern was either too aggressive or too gentle to capture the complex truth of what he’d experienced.

Kieran’s body still ached in places he tried not to think about, phantom sensations that reminded him of Vale’s hands whenever he shifted position. But that was over now. Everything was back to the way it was. The way that felt tolerable. Safe.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

The bedroom door opened without warning

Kieran’s hands tightened on the guitar neck and he closed his eyes. “I don’t n-need help right now.”

“I wasn’t offering help. I was just checking in. You’ve been working on this for hours.”

Because every time I try to make it work, I remember exactly what inspired it and I can’t breathe properly.

“Maybe I could take a look at the chord structure,” Vale suggested. “Sometimes a fresh perspective—”

“No.” The word emerged sharper than Kieran intended. “I mean—I want to f-figure this one out myself.”

Vale’s expression shifted to something that might have been hurt if Kieran didn’t know better. “Of course. Your process, your timeline.”

The gentleness in his tone tightened Kieran’s throat with guilt. Vale was being patient and understanding, giving him space to work through the song.

Maybe he was overthinking this, maybe Vale really did just want to help with the music.

Stop it. Stop looking for ulterior motives when he’s being nice.

Two hours later, Kieran sat in front of the camera setup for what Vale called a “soft interview”—just him and a rapper in the UK named Lowe who specifically requested the interview to talk about writing lyrics rather than personal drama. No medical emergencies, no traumatic revelations, just two artists talking shop.